The entrance of the building of Temple University, Japan Campus
Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ) was selected to receive grant funding from the U.S. Embassy for the first time to support the university’s English training programs for as long as two years, starting in 2023. The funding assistance supports TUJ’s programs, which are designed to enhance the communicative English language teaching skills of Japanese primary and secondary school teachers in the Kanto and Kansai regions.
This achievement underscores TUJ’s long-term effort to promote its master’s and doctoral programs in education. TUJ, which has been offering a master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) since 1982, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The TESOL program supports Temple University’s institutional mission by promoting internationalization, linguistic and cultural diversity, teaching excellence, and the integration of research with teaching and learning. About 1,700 master’s degrees and more than 180 doctoral degrees have been granted by TUJ over the last 40 years.
Based on the funding assistance from the embassy, TUJ’s Graduate College of Education will offer teacher training and scholarship programs for the purpose to enhance the English language teaching skill of Japanese teachers in 2023.
“It is an honor to receive a grant from the U.S. Embassy for the first time, which demonstrates our long-term commitment to offering high-quality academic programs in the area of post-graduate education programs,” said Min Lu, the executive director of Graduate College of Education and Academic English Program at TUJ. “We sincerely hope that our training programs will contribute to enhancing the English teaching skills of many Japanese primary and secondary school instructors.”
U.S. Embassy Tokyo’s Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Department of States announced in February an open competition for organizations to submit English teacher training projects.
The embassy aims to strengthen English language education in Japan as its mission priority. It is committed to providing Japanese teachers of English with opportunities to improve their English teaching and to promote more student exchange between the U.S. and Japan. The embassy aims to support Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology’s (MEXT) objective to enhance English language education in Japan. MEXT adopted a new policy in 2020 to teach English as a regular curriculum for students in grades 5 and 6 at domestic elementary schools to enhance the English language skills of the younger generation.
“The U.S. Embassy Tokyo is delighted to fund this teacher training program for Japanese teachers of English administered by Temple University, Japan Campus,” said Grace Choi, education and exchanges officer at U.S. Embassy Tokyo. “The program was selected for its high quality, easily accessible content with a focus on enriching and sustaining teaching talent in Japan, by offering them the chance to pursue master’s courses offered by the university.”
TUJ will offer two programs — “English Teachers Skill-up Course” and “English Teacher Scholarship Course” – in 2023. They are targeted at individuals aspiring to become a Japanese primary, or secondary school instructor, current teaching professionals, and teacher trainers. They are open to individuals teaching in the Kanto and Kansai regions. The university will accept applications from November 15, 2022, until December 15, 2022. The tuition will be fully funded by the U.S. government. The programs are supported by MEXT.
English Teachers Skill-up Course is made up of (a) In-Person Courses in which a maximum of 50 individuals can participate at TUJ’s Tokyo campus and 40 at TUJ’s Osaka campus, and (b) Video Lectures and Demonstrations in which a maximum of 100 individuals. Participants can enroll in one or both of these courses and will receive an “Acknowledgement of Completion” upon successful completion.
Fifty participants of English Teacher Scholarship Course can choose from one of the 12-hour distinguished lecture seminars held in 2023. In addition, 10 participants (five in Tokyo and five in Osaka) will receive full financial support for participation in a three-credit-hour course called Adapting and Developing Language Teaching Materials that is part of the Master of Science in Education program with a concentration in TESOL offered at TUJ. This graduate-level course will be offered in the summer of 2023.
Click the link below for details (Japanese):
The information of Japanese Primary and Secondary English Teacher Training (Grant program by U.S. Government)
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